


Flint Catching in the Dark

by smilejpg



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Cecil Is Not Described, Couch Cuddles, Episode: e029 Subway, Fluff, M/M, One Month Anniversary, Relationships Are Messy, Sharing a Bed, The One True Timepiece in All of Night Vale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-14
Updated: 2013-12-14
Packaged: 2018-01-04 14:33:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1082138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smilejpg/pseuds/smilejpg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They had made plans for their first month anniversary. Such plans. A nice date out, then a movie and perhaps a nightcap. And more, if Carlos was feeling well enough for it. </p><p>Unfortunately, that was also the day that the subway had showed up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flint Catching in the Dark

"Carlos."

"Hm."

"Do you know what today is?"

They were seated side by side on Cecil's sofa, bathed in the silver glow of Lucille Ball's teeth from Cecil's ancient cathode ray television set. More precisely, Cecil had his head tucked against Carlos's shoulder, the good one, the one that was not still sore and in a sling after the attack below Lane 5.

"...Hm." Carlos's gaze didn't shift, seeming intent at the screen but, Cecil knew, at least a good five hundred and forty-some-odd miles away. On average.

After a few moments, Carlos drew a slow breath. It hitched only once, mindful of the stitches up his side.

"Well," said Carlos. "There are multiple, um, solutions to that. Depending on what you mean."

A delighted smile started at the corners of Cecil's mouth. He snuggled closer. Carlos was _sciencing_ for him. "Oh...?"

"In most of North America, it should be Friday, September the Sixth," Carlos said carefully, eyes focusing on that distant, fixed point beyond the glare of his beautiful thick-rimmed spectacles. "However, taking into account time dilation, and the day cancellations over the last thirteen months, we should be behind by... thirty-one days, four hours and eight minutes, putting us at Tuesday, August the Sixth, within a standard deviation of twenty-five thousand years."

It was actually Monday the Fifth, but only due to last week's Inversion Day, and Cecil hated to interrupt. "Go on," he encouraged.

"Hum. Well. It's the third full moon of the month, Neptune is passing through the constellation of Aquarius, and there is an alignment of several dwarf planets tonight which will somehow deleteriously affect the town's groundwater supply in exactly one week..."

"Yes?"

"...it's earnest toppings day at Big Rico's..."

"Uh- _huh_...?"

"...and this is a rerun," Carlos concluded, frowning in the direction of the TV.

Cecil chuckled fondly. Oh, Carlos. Of _course_ it wasn't a rerun. "Anything else?" he prompted.

Carlos made a noise in his throat, a light 'hm!' like he'd just been handled a tough puzzle. "Let's see," he said.

His good arm, which had been stretched along the back of the sofa to accommodate Cecil curling against his side, dropped down slightly to wrap around Cecil's shoulders. His wristwatch -- a thick metal time piece that had been a graduation gift from his father, and which Carlos had at one point described to Cecil as being the only 'true' clock in Night Vale, a conclusion he'd arrived at after rigorous testing -- thrummed its imperceptibly soft and steady _tick_ against Cecil's shirt sleeve, which was _lovely_.

"Gravitationally speaking, assuming it's really August the Sixth, and it's still 2013, that would mean we're fifty-nine-point-seven percent of the way through our present revolution around the Sun," Carlos continued. "About our four-point-five-one billionth revolution since the planet was formed, and our spiral arm's fiftieth plus-or-minus-three revolution around the galactic core. Assuming time is a constant elsewhere in the universe, but it's not a constant _here_ either so that seems unlikely. Hmmm..."

"And?"

"I don't _think_ I have any overdue library books?" Carlos guessed.

Cecil couldn't help a faint shudder. "Well, I hope not," he offered. The Night Vale public library was currently discorporeal, phasing among seven states of existence at least half of which were on fire. But that didn't mean anything for _fines_. "What else?"

"Mm..." Carlos's frown deepened, his brow coming together in that classically statuesque way as it knotted in thought. "I think it might be a saint day...? I didn't get to double-check the Old Faith signs and portents you sent over..."

It was so _sweet_ that Carlos remembered those! Even Cecil had trouble keeping the arcane calendar straight without a scrying circle and Google, sometimes.

"Anything closer to home?" Cecil asked eagerly. Softly, but eagerly.

"Oh!" Carlos's focus instantly shifted to an appreciable seven inches, glancing down at the man nestled next to him on the couch as though just handed the reminder that he was there. "Uh, what week is this? For us."

 _Us_. What a precious, _splendid_ word. Beaming, Cecil had to restrain himself from burrowing into his boyfriend's side, an expression that was possibly more literal than Carlos would expect -- and not the sort of thing he needed when he was still in recovery anyway.

 _"Three,"_ Cecil said, luxuriating in the sound of that number, magical, auspicious. "It's our third week anniversary."

Carlos made a soft groan, not out of pain, Cecil was at least fairly sure. "I'm sorry," he said. "We should've made plans."

Oh, but they had. Carlos had just gotten caught up at the lab and forgotten.

But it was fine. It was really, very fine, with the two of them curled up just like this, and Cecil pressed so close he could nearly hear Carlos's dear, gorgeous flesh stitching itself back together, one thread of skin at a time. And his _heart._ Oh! Cecil could tolerate a few missed dates if he could still listen to Carlos's heartbeat at the end of a long evening. So it was really very okay indeed.

"Hmm," Cecil answered pleasantly, letting his eyes fall shut again. His perfect, forgetful Carlos, arm around his shoulders, the beat of his heart and the tick of his wristwatch falling into flawless, regular time against Cecil's body. "That's all right. There's usually next week."

"'Usually'?"

"I would say 'always,' but, well..."

Carlos chuckled softly, and the sound joined the steady vibrations filling Cecil's shoulders and oh, _oh_ , if he could hang onto this moment forever, Cecil was sure that he would. He reached up a hand and laced his fingers with Carlos's, a smile spreading across his suddenly-too-warm cheeks as his boyfriend squeezed back.

"Let's assume for now it'll be there," Carlos suggested, leaning in just a little more to bury a kiss into Cecil's hair. "Add a few days and that'll make one month for us. We'll do something special."

* * *

That had been the idea. A nice date out, then a movie and perhaps a nightcap. And more, if Carlos was feeling well enough for it. Cecil had been _quite_ patient on that front, what with the sling and the stitches and painkillers putting a stop to much more than light petting and languid kisses these last few weeks, and if Carlos felt a latent sense of obligation to make up for the lost time, it was at least matched by his own desire to get physical.

They discussed it on the phone a few times, and when the day rolled around there had been sickeningly cute little text messages and some not-so-radio-appropriate voicemails, each man assuring the other that yes, this was the day, neither of them was going to let their work interfere this time, and it would be (although Carlos hated to abuse the word as Cecil did) _perfect_.

Unfortunately, that was also the day that the subway had showed up.

* * *

Carlos pressed his face into his hands.

"But _why_ did you do it?" he asked, for what had to be the twelfth time.

Cecil gazed uncomprehendingly at him, or perhaps past him, all the way out toward the rim of the galaxy or the far reaches of the void. It was impossible to gauge. He understood the _shape_ of Carlos, there, the meat creature built of particles and assorted star stuff, animated by some intangible force that could have been soul or consciousness or just Cecil's own selfish will exerted upon the natural universe to give form to something formless. And he understood the words formed from the vibrations of Carlos's throat, taut and lovely. He just couldn't understand the things between, what emotions must have been forming in the gaps between those synapses, what motivated so much urgency.

"I had to go see," Cecil said again, for what must have been the tenth time at least.

"But I _told_ you," said Carlos, still kneading his brow with his fingers. It looked strange to Cecil, until he remembered that Carlos's bad arm was out of the sling, now, and his glasses were clipped to his shirt collar. "I _warned_ you that people were coming out changed. That they were -- How could you go, knowing that? Knowing a lot of people weren't coming out at all!"

"I'm sorry," Cecil offered, perfunctorily, aware that it was one of those things expected to be said.

"Stop." And at this, Cecil could hear something start to fracture in the other man's voice. "Just stop. You don't even..."

They should be sitting down, Cecil realized dimly. Holding hands, touching. Anything, probably, besides standing in Carlos's doorway like this, talking at cross purposes from one another, like metal and flint swinging and missing over and over again, failing to catch a spark in the darkness.

"I missed you," Cecil ventured, because it was true, but it seemed so hollow to say aloud.

Carlos's voice broke into a shaky laugh, and he pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes and swallowed down a breath in an audible choke. Head bowed, he carded his fingers through his hair, thick and curling softly and, was Cecil imagining it, a little more gray than before?

"Do you even remember," Carlos managed after some time, knuckles blanched and coiled tight around fistfuls of hair, "what day it is?"

Cecil blinked absently at him. Because his show had ended at midnight, as it always did, and so this was a different day, it had to be, or had things changed? Or did he mean in the larger sense, what day was it anywhere, did days matter? For Cecil, it had all streamed by him quite some time ago, but for Carlos...

Cecil found his eyes falling to the circle of light at Carlos's wrist. The face of his watch, reflecting the sodium glow of the streetlamp, and for a moment Cecil thought that it resembled the Moon, just a bit, perhaps a little less illusory.

"It's Thursday," Cecil recalled.

Carlos exhaled. He dropped his hands at his sides in something like resignation. "Yes," he said.

"The Fifteenth of August... right?"

"Right."

"We were... going on a date tonight."

Carlos looked at him. His eyes were a little shiny under the light of the streetlamp, and the smile he bore Cecil then was weak, but genuine, and all at once Cecil found his gaze not miles or light years away but close again, finally, frozen beneath that wrecked and beautiful face.

"Close enough," Carlos said at last, stepping to the side of the doorway to let Cecil in.

* * *

They fell asleep atop the covers of Carlos's too-small bed, fully clothed and stinking of the cheap wine Carlos had extracted from the depths of his fridge. Cecil slept deeply; Carlos intermittently, stirring briefly every hour or so, each time afraid his arms would be empty when he opened his eyes.

But in the morning Cecil was still there, limbs tangled with Carlos's as before, his face blank and peaceful in a way Carlos had never seen it before.

Softly, carefully, Carlos drew a breath. His bad shoulder twinged, stiff and sore, and each of his still-healing scars seemed to alight across his body. A dozen jabbing little reminders, even through the muzzy haze of sleep, that perhaps his own judgment wasn't the most reliable sometimes.

This wasn't how things were supposed to go. But, well, that was the one constant of this town: nothing went according to plan, and if Carlos and Cecil were alike in any respect it was surely this mutual tendency of theirs to not leave some things well enough alone. And if plans fell apart, but the two of them still came together like twigs in a whirlpool at the end of each evening then it was probably all right, for the time being, to be like this.

Carlos wound his arms more tightly around his companion. He tucked his chin against Cecil's shoulder and, for once in a great long while, allowed himself to sleep in.

* * *

"I want you to have this."

Cecil started, but Carlos was already fastening the heavy time piece around his wrist, the warm metal sliding over his skin.

"Oh, but..." he began to protest, his cheeks starting to darken.

"Think of it as an anniversary gift," said Carlos, fastening the latch with a solid _click_ just over Cecil's pulse point. "This way, wherever you go, and for however long... you'll be able to keep track."

"Carlos..."

Cecil gazed down at the watch now encircling his wrist. The thick, silvery clock face, ticking away its reliable rhythm against his skin, seeming to reflect oceans and unlit worlds and, in particular, Carlos's heartbeat on the verge of sleep.

Later, Cecil would wonder if they were going too fast. A one month anniversary should probably be spent necking in the back of a theater, or undressing one another in the soft-lit glow of a bedroom. Probably not exchanging expensive gifts while they sat, rumpled, in yesterday's clothes, at the breakfast table.

For the moment, though, Cecil still saw great distances, perceived time as stretched out like a disintegrating, rotten rubber band, and the new weight upon his wrist was both foreign and completely natural. Like watching a moment of his own future sliding into place amidst the (ever ephemeral) present. It was, like so many things having to do with Carlos, effortlessly perfect.

He tried to say as much. He tried to share what this meant for him, not just in the immediate sense of this moment, here, but in the sense of all time, anywhere, real or imagined. What it meant gravitationally, cosmically. How the farthest stars and the nearest heartbeat were both contained in this simplest of gestures. How precious and singular this was. How much better this was than any night curled up in front of the TV or any kiss in Mission Grove Park.

What came out, instead, was an incoherent stammering of syllables, as Cecil reached across the narrow table and sought out Carlos's shoulders, pulling him into a hug and kissing every inch of skin that he could find.

Especially the scar tissue. Especially that.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I have a tumblr, as is the fashion these days: http://smiledotjpg.tumblr.com.


End file.
